Have you ever noticed that it's only 'Other People' who binge drink?

Dry January: Tara Gladden has decided to kick the booze for a month to
support Cancer Research UK’s inaugural ‘Dryathlon’.
In her second blog for Telegraph Wonder Women, she reveals how she has never
been more obsessed with booze - especially after a mocktail binge.

Binge drinking: for what looks from the pages of the tabloid press like a shocking symptom of Broken Britain looks from close-up like the sort of ruddy good time that makes you proud to be a denizen of this great nation, writes Tara Gladden.Photo: Christopher Pledger

By Tara Gladden

4:06PM GMT 07 Jan 2013

I’ve successfully trudged through the first weekend of my Dryathlon, and it’s official: I’ve never been more obsessed with booze. Basically, I’m the gangly teenager at the back of the bus, talking loudly about boobs and bums and third base, making it painfully obvious to everyone in earshot that I’m not getting any action.

And in the cold light of sobriety, a couple of things have struck me.

Firstly, have you ever noticed that it’s only ever Other People that binge drink?

My favourite alcohol-related quote of the moment is theoff-the-record snipe from Ken Clarkethat it’s ‘bloody obvious’ that banging a minimum price-per-unit on booze won’t tackle binge drinking. The logic here is that ‘moderate drinkers’ (you, me and that nice Mr and Mrs Bloggs from down the street) would be savaged by the necessity of paying £4.05 for a lovely bottle of plonk, while those wily binge drinkers will be too sloshed to notice the difference.

Because when you first see someone after New Year’s Eve or a Stag Do or an Epic Weekend you don't ask, So did you binge drink? I bet you guys binge drank a lot, right? And they don't say, God yeah, we binge drunk the hell out of Bruges. They just adopt an expression of mild pain or let out a heavy breath or shake their heads slowly and say, Jesus, it was crazy or Christ, I'm getting too old for this shit, and you take your cue and feel jealous and grudgingly impressed and mildly incredulous.

For what looks from the pages of the tabloid press like a shocking symptom of Broken Britain looks from close-up like the sort of ruddy good time that makes you proud to be a denizen of this great nation, rather than one of the stricter Arab Emirates or Jacksonville, Arkansas.

People take it really personally when you don't drink

Which brings me to my second sober realisation: Your comrades take it personally when you don’t drink, or don’t drink hard or fast enough.

Partly this seems to me about the ancient and honoured ritual of ‘getting your round in’.

“It’s like when someone in the office offers to makes tea,” a friend points out, taking a hearty swig of her Belgian ale while I toy with my ginger beer. “If you say you don’t want a cup, what you’re really saying is I don’t really like you, and I don’t want to join in. I’m not even that fond of tea, but I’ve started saying yes anyway, and then tipping it away when no-one’s looking.”

And what goes for tea goes double for grog.

We’ve all been there. You’re already making your goodbyes, when the round-getter cocks their head, narrows their eyes and and asks if you’re Absolutely Sure you don’t want another Slippery Nipple for the road. Or your friend breaks her tale of star-crossed love and Facebook stalking to stare significantly at your half-finished glass and her empty one, insisting she’s fine to wait until you’ve finished (as long as you hurry the cuss up).

Even in these dark, dry days, when it can feel like I’m the only lemonade-drinker in the village, my co-horts urge me to drink up, so they can shout me another pint of aspartame and suspended sodium saccharin.

Mocktail-binge time

Which is why it’s such a relief to spend an evening with Pregnant Friend and Future Baby Daddy, out in the wilds of Winchester.

"Wait, so you haven't tried Becks Blue?"

They both turn to look at me expectantly. I shake my head.

"Seriously? It's what all the knocked-up ladies drink when they want to pretend to get pissed."

Future Baby Daddy dives for the fridge and comes out with three bottles.

"Drink it from the bottle," his Pregnant Girlfriend urges. "It feels much more alcoholic that way."

We clink bottles and take a long swig.

"See?"

I nod. "You're right. It's uncanny." It seems churlish to point out that I don't really like beer. After all, during the Siege of Leningrad, the Russians ate sweets made from the glue of bookbindings. And boiled shoe leather. And sometimes each other.

We all have our crosses to bear.

"Thing is," says Future Baby Daddy, "you have a couple of these and you start to feel a bit drunk. Then you have a few more and your body figures out that it's been lied to."

We all wilt slightly.

Pregnant Girlfriend perks up first. "But maybe if we switched it up. Went for some tonic and then a glass of Shloer and whatever that stuff is you brought from Marks & Spencer’s..."

And just like that, I launch into the first mocktail binge drink of my Dryathlon.

Tara Gladden is a freelance writer, editor, literary consultant and bookseller based in London. She specialises in travel journalism and non-fiction editing, and is currently working on a novel and a sit-com